The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1887-10-20
OUR PROBLEM
How Shall we Work It Out Gan
We Command Progress ?-Can .
We Compel Events?

we CompeI EVentS!
The conditions of material progress
in the State of North Carolina are not
satisfactory. No doubt this view will
be denounced as alphabetically pessi-
mistic by that large class of journals
in the State devoted to booming bust
ness. At the risk of their adverse
criticism, however, the Southermer
makes the assertion and opens up the
question for discussion in the hope
that good may come Of it.
A mere growth in population, a
rapid increase of immigration alone
should not be regarded as a test of
progress. It is not intended here to
set up any such standard. When
population, however, increases but
slowly and immigration amounts prac-
tically to nothing, we are forced to see
that behind the fact must lie a cause,
or causes, and these while initiating
against our growth of immigration
are probably operating in other re-
spects against our advance in material
progress parallel with only a normal
increase in population. 1t behooves
us to search for these cause Find
ing them it will behoove us to find a
remedy for them.
THE LABOR QUESTION
forms probably the iniative element Of
the problem here suggested. The in
telligent observer, once acquainted
with the domestic economy of society
as here existent will conclude that it's
organization is not permanent or even
stable. The negro, the bone and
sinew element, is not an integral part
Of the mass, but a foreign element
where otherwise homogeniety would
prevail. AS such he must remain, a
cause of irritation and disorder more
or less frequent and pronounced until,
in the progress of nature, he is ele-
mentally absorbed Or cast out. The
former alternative would mean mis-
cegenation. Its mere statement to
Southern ears is enough to pronounce
it's happening a physical and moral
impossibility. The latter means the
loss of our bone and sinew. To this
sooner or later we must come.
THE NEGRO MUST GO,
nay he will 90. Not suddenly or vio-
lently perhaps-but who can predict
that even this may not come to pass Z?
Go he will, go he must, some way,
some how-not because Of any special
desire to get rid of him, not because
of prejudice or hatred, but, in obedi-
ence to a law of natural necessity.
Physically, morally, mentally he is not
nearly the peer of his white competi-
tor in those struggles from which
emerge socially and politically the
ittest. In all such contests he must
go to the wall. He cannot be merged
in the dominant race and sink his
identity in a hybrid p~osterity. There
fore he must 60 because in a free land
where class privilege is sustained
neither in institution or public opinion
the natural tendency of the population
is towards homogeniety. This is as
it should be and
IhOE NIL IN Ill
will only be fixed and general when
social strata differ not in kind but
only in superstition. In other words,
when homogeniety of population is
attained, when the lowest may aspire
to rank with the highest as a reward
of honest endeavor, when the creative
classes will continually furnish new
material for the polishing process of
education and cultivation, and when
the accumulations of these creative
classes shall add to the general wealth
and stimulate the general prosperity.
The limits of this article will scarce
ly suffice for presentation of the proofs
Of theories stated. The writer takes
it for granted though that even to
those who have not thought of the
subject his statement of facts and the
law OF those facts will come with axi-
omatic force. 1t may be asked if this
be the law then,
WHY HAS NOT cUFFEE GONE?
The answer is simply that he has not
been pushed. The vacuum he would
leave we have nothing vet to fill.
When those of superior force come in
sufficient numbers and demand his
place in the social system he will melt
out of sight as already he has done in
Maryland and West Virginia, as he is
rapidly doing in Virginia and in Sec
tons all over the Southland-not even
emitting parts of u own State.
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